Guardian
by Famous Fault
Summary: The Guardians lost their Pharaoh and with him their purpose. One Guardian finds new purpose in the wizarding world after witnessing the slaughter of a soul and vows to protect the souls of mankind from this evil. The Guardians are soon perceived as a threat and the hunt for powerful souls begins. No one knows that the most powerful soul has just returned, not remembering who he is
1. The New World

Good evening, my dear Snow Elves, most of you reading this know me and have been longing for me to write again. A little story first though. I have finished an entire story of my own but have so far not found an agent willing to publish it. Though because of a serious personal trauma (that I may or may not choose to share with you later) I have been suffering from writers block. I lack motivation to write and have stopped actively looking for agents. So, my dear Snow Elves, it's your job to get me motivated again.

* * *

Up.

Hold.

Down.

…

Up.

Hold.

Down.

Repeat.

The sit-ups were easy, rhythmical and a routine that had long since lost its purpose. What good did these exercises do her? What use did she have of the hours and hours of training she went through every day? What good did her healthy diet do her? What she could do was nothing like anyone else could do. This wasn't due to her eating or her training, nor due to meditation or anything else said to be healthy for the human body. It just _was_.

Why continue practice? In the last three hundred years she had no use of her abilities. Carolus Rex had been a disappointment, wars had become a disappointment. He had been a tactical genius, he had known how to inspire his troops, but he had been proud, suffered a great deal from hubris and unbearably religious. Since then and the crushing defeat at Poltava she had realized that war was no longer her place.

War had changed, it was no longer the same thing as she had been trained for. She could no longer be the difference between victory or defeat, now war was decided by who had the best technology. People were no longer relevant, they could no longer fight, people had been reduced to hostages of war, no longer the cause of or the solution to war. She could almost say she missed war.

She missed a decent fight, someone that could match themselves with her, many hundred years had passed since anyone had been able to defeat her in a fist to fist fight. She had tried everything, everywhere, martial arts in Asia, MMA in USA, cage fighting in South America, sometimes legal, sometimes illegal. She preferred the illegal ones, the ones without rules. She smiled and stood up. The very notion of rules in a fight was ridiculous, one fought to survive.

_'Or because it's the only thing one's good at',_ she thought bitterly. There was money in fighting, people never expected her to win so she had made money, though she had also developed a name and she didn't want a name. So now she found herself in England, in a shabby apartment in a place where the landowner didn't bother asking for identity as long as she didn't complain about the leaks in the roof. Perfect for her taste.

When you as a seemingly teenage girl, 70 kg heavy and barely 1.70 cm made potato mash out of 200 kg muscle mountains a name was something you quickly got by. She sighed and grinned, the taste of victory was always sweet but never satisfying, the expressions on the faces of the crowd when she stood as lone victor with barely a scratch she felt proud … for a second. They could never defeat her, they couldn't even dream of it, what she had been taught had long since been forgotten.

Cultures were changing again, slowly women in war were being accepted again, but overall many still believed their place was safe and at home. Cultures shifted back and forth all the time, in ancient times warrior women were common, then they disappeared, returned, disappeared and returned. Men had always been allowed to fight, but not people like her, a woman, by todays standards a girl.

She hated this new development, a hundred years ago she had been an adult woman, a person allowed to decide and care for herself, now she was just another runaway teenager. Not to mention that the new scientific developments were starting to scare her, governments knew more and more about what their people did, identity was required for every whim. She had been forced to swim over the Atlantic just to get to Europe, no airplane would let her step aboard without ID.

The world was shrinking and eventually she would be cornered, there would be questions she couldn't avoid and eventually they'd find out that something was seriously wrong with her. _'__Very wrong indeed.' _So what could she do? Even she was limited to this earth, this planet. She didn't even know why.

She was waiting for something, all of the survivors were waiting for something, but not one of them knew what they were waiting for. So they lived, searched, waited and fled. And all the while the world was catching up with them, soon there would be nowhere left to run.

She picked up the paper that was laying on her kitchen table. Would she go against an unspoken order if she went to a new world? A world not quite so ruled by technology and knowledge? She looked curiously at the pictures, at the people who smiled and waved at her, pictures on a paper that moved. This new world appealed to her, a world where abnormality was normal, maybe even she could be normal. She couldn't practice magic, not like they could, but she could do a lot of other things they couldn't even dream of.

She knew how to get there, she had been looking for a way in for a long time. She hadn't been surprised to notice that their magic was not invisible to her, as it was to other _muggles. _Magic had never been a stranger to her and although she had never noticed it before now that she knew she couldn't help but notice it everywhere.

It had been such a coincidence that she couldn't help but believe that Anhur had set her upon the path that led her to the discovery of the Wizarding World. Anhur and Sekhmet were the only two deities that she still regularly prayed to, which still had meaning in her life. They were the ones closest to her. Anhur, the god of war and the patron of the Pharaoh's warriors and Sekhmet, the goddess of vengeance and disease who had fiercely defended Ra. She had not forsaken Ra, Isis, Horus or any of the other of the Pharaoh's gods, but Sekhmet and Anhur were close to her on a personal level, a level that no other deity could ever reach.

She had stumbled across a strange creature, a creature so strange she had almost believed it to be a Ka, but it hadn't been. The tall, cloak-wearing figure had been a soul-sucker, he had stolen a persons Ka. This vile crime had shocked her deeply, only the Pharaoh and his court were allowed to capture a persons Ka and only if the person had been guilty of a terrible crime. She had seen the court pass this sentence, but the court did it swiftly, with as little of a fight as possible. This creature had stolen the Ka in a slow and excruciating way. She had almost been unable to watch it through to the end. The persons Ka had not even been able to put up a fight.

She still wondered what fate the Ka had suffered. She doubted very strongly that it had been set free, as was common for dead Kas, nor had it been captured to be used in battle. It had been devoured and she wondered if that would destroy the soul. She had never heard of anything that could permanently destroy a soul, a soul was an important thing, not even those attempting to assassinate the Pharaoh would have been subjected to a fate _that_ terrible.

Accustomed to war as she was she didn't usually think about the victims, she didn't wonder who they had been or if they had deserved to die. Normally she allowed all the death and despair to wash over her, it wasn't her task to comfort the survivors or heal the wounded, it was her task to successfully complete her mission and then report back to receive a new mission.

This time was different. Whenever she had seen the court capture someone's Ka she had known it was deserved, this time the Ka had been devoured and she could think of no one who deserved such a fate. Out of mercy she had killed the victim, death certainly to be preferred to the soulless state they had been forced into and in the vain hope that the Ba's death would salvage the Ka.

Something at the back of her head was nagging at her that the violation on this Ka was reason enough for her to enter this new world and see what it was like. Essentially it wasn't her job to protect the masses, but she also knew he would have wanted her to and he wasn't around anymore to be protected. No one alive had as much experience with souls than she did, maybe she could stop the heartless destruction of Kas. Unless it was an isolated case of course. She didn't know and she knew that new world brought new questions and new dangers. Maybe a new war …

She had never started a war, but she was prepared to do just that to protect souls. She thought about her own Ka, her Ka was her very dear and the thought alone that some kind of demon would suck her Ka out through her mouth was terrifying. Never had anyone threatened her soul, her soul was her strength and the possibility that in this new world she might lose it was beyond terrifying. She was trained not to feel fear, but this made her knees shake and the sweat break out.

And what if she missed whatever she was still living for?

She silently prayed to Anhur, her patron. What was she to do? A Guardian without a Pharaoh to guard, what purpose could such a person have? After thousand of years she was still waiting for an order from her Pharaoh. But he wouldn't be giving her any orders ever again. It was time that she started to take decisions of her own, something that was more difficult than she ever realized.

She had chosen to follow Carolus Rex and a lot of other leaders throughout time, but she had only made those decisions to stop having to make decisions of her own and most of these decisions she had regretted. Now she had to chose between entering this world and perhaps to face a monstrous demon that stole Kas or to leave it be and allow people to suffer at the hands of these beings. She knew what would have pleased her Pharaoh more.

She had every reason to go to that world, the only thing that spoke against it was her fear. She sighed and thought of Anhur, the god of war did not allow fear among those who counted him as their patron. The Pharaoh's Guardians had not been allowed to feel fear.

She looked at the paper again. She knew where to go and she didn't waste any time. She packed her scarce belongings, chased out five cats from her apartment, cleaned it rather sloppily and put the key together with three extra months of rent in an envelope and dropped it in the mailbox. She took a cab to central London, where the signs of magic were unmistakable if you could see them. Eventually she stood before the Leaky Cauldron, the only way of which she knew that could get her into the Wizardig World. She took a deep breath and with one hand pushed the door open.

It was as she had expected it to be, just a step above medieval. It was dark, shabby and lacked all form of modern technology. She smiled at the prospect of no more technology, she hated the new inventions. What was present in abundance though was magic. She needed to do a conscious effort not to stare as she saw how easily these people controlled magic, and for such tedious tasks.

She needed to remind herself that this was probably not the same magic as the one she was used to, but still the disregarding manner with which they used it made her stomach ache. Where she came from using magic was a difficult and almost sacred act and not something you used to make the spoon stir your tea for you.

She made her way forward, realizing she was dressed wrongly. This was something she needed to attend to as quickly as possible. She walked towards the bar, barmen had a long history of knowing things they both should and shouldn't. Some people threw her glances and frowned at her apparel, but didn't react further.

"Good evening", she said politely to the quite bald barman.

"Evening, miss", he greeted back. "Ready for Hogwarts, are we?"

"Hogwarts? I don't think so?" she said coolly.

"You're not a student?" he asked taking aback for a while.

"No, a tourist. I need clothes and I don't know where to find them. I'm certain you can inform me where to find someone who sells clothes." He took offense by her cold and unamused behavior but she didn't care. "And boarding, if so possible."

"We have rooms", the barman said, trying to sound as cold as her but not really succeeding. "If you want clothes you need to go to Diagon Alley, if you go out back it's the brick from the trash can, three up and two across."

"What are the prices for a room?" she wondered and stood crestfallen when he mentioned a currency she had never even heard about. "Do you taken foreign currency?"

"No", he said grumpily and although she wasn't quite sure if what he said was true it was her own fault for being so cold. Barmen were valuable sources of information and she preferred to keep on their good sides, but being as scared as she never would admit she was she couldn't help but acting cold and on her guard.

"Do you take this?" she hadn't expected to ever have to use it again, but she always carried it with her. The payment she had received for her years of service. Payment in gold, ancient Egyptian currency. She put a single coin on the counter, knowing it was worth far more than any of the rooms could possibly be.

"T-that would certainly cover a months stay and food", the barman stuttered. "Isn't that too long?"

"No, I think that'll be fine", she said. "Another thing, I don't have one of those … sticks."

"Wands?" he asked confused. Then he sighed and smiled at her. "Are you a foreigner?" It was a question but it didn't sound like one because her northern African appearance made him rather certain she was.

She nodded grimly. "Yes."

"Try Ollivanders. Though you need one to get to Diagon Alley, Diagon Alley is where you can get everything, books, clothes, pets, ingredients, currency exchange, anything. If you need to get through I'll let you, just ask. Oh, I'm Tom!"

She smiled, almost condescendingly. "Not today, Tom." She knew she was rude by not telling him her name and that her guarded attitude made her mean, almost unbearably so, but she couldn't help it. Tom however didn't seem to notice, still too preoccupied with the strange and very valuable gold she had given him to realize she was treating him badly.

"Of course", he said and showed her to the rooms upstairs. He unlocked room twenty-four and handed her the key. "Dinner is served … whenever you please ma'am."

"Thank you", she said. "Now please leave me be." Tom was about to say something else but she held up a hand. "If I desire your company I'll let you know." Then she closed the door in his face and sighed deeply. Her heart raced and there was sweat on her brow. She could still leave if she wanted, but she wouldn't, she had never failed anything she had set her mind to.

She was not accustomed to fear, but now she was afraid. Maybe tomorrow she would go out into Diagon Alley, but no earlier. Maybe she would sit downstairs, study these witches and wizards and learn as much as she could. Fear was controlled with knowledge, so knowledge was what she needed.

"Seen a ghost?" a voice asked and she jumped up. Was she not alone? She looked around to find the source but couldn't detect any living being. "You seem scared. Want to use me?"

She almost growled in protest and then noticed what had been talking. "A chair? Are you a … talking chair?" She never even considered that she could be losing her mind, she had been trained to adapt and expect the unexpected.

"Yes, indeed I am", the chair said happily. "Have you never seen talking furniture before?"

"No, I can't say I have. Is this common?"

"Oh, no, not really. It's just here, in the Leaky Cauldron, that we talking furniture live. And honestly we don't talk much, we have been created for specific purposes. Mirrors designed to give beauty tips, beds designed to sing you to bed, chairs to praise your efforts and saying that you've deserved to sit down for a while. Most of us have long since abandoned our duties and just comment whatever we feel like commenting."

"So you could tell everything a guest does to the next guest that stays in the same room?" she wondered both distrustful and disappointed.

"No. The furniture is only interested in the here and now, in truth I can't even remember what the guest before you did. Trust me, missy, if we could remember things like that every witch and wizard would object to us being here."

Even though the chair had a point she chose not to trust it. She would condone all her research in silence, making sure the chair would know nothing. She remained silent and looked around the rest of the room, was there any other furniture that could talk? She noticed none.

Now not feeling safe in her own room she decided she'd only stay long enough to gather herself and banish all fear from her body and mind, then she returned downstairs. There were living, breathing people there of a kind she knew nothing about, but at least it was better than talking furniture, people were more predictable.

She sat in a far, dark corner and when Tom asked her if she wanted anything she ordered a cup of coffee just to be rid of him. She sat there in silence, taking in the witches and wizard who were reading papers, drinking brandy or tea. Amused she noticed the warning sign on the wall that warned for the Exploding Lemonade. She blinked twice to make sure that Exploding Lemonade were the right words, the place was quite dark, but that was what it said. She decided never to try something as hazardous as Exploding Lemonade, she wondered if these people were suicidal or just masochistic.

Then a face stared at her and started screaming. She was so taken aback that she didn't at once notice that the face was not actually present in the Leaky Cauldron, but that it was a picture on the paper. She recognized the picture, she had heard the police talk about him on the radio and had seen a picture on the news, he was a wanted man and to judge from the picture on the paper he was wanted here as well. She needed to get her hand on that paper.

Then a pompous man walked into the inn, followed by a young teenager who looked rather miserable. Tom showed them the way to a door behind the bar and then the man and the boy disappeared for a while. When they returned Tom led the boy up the stairs and the man left, both seeming a bit happier. She could tell by the glances the other guest threw the pompous man that he was of some importance so she memorized what he looked like.

* * *

She and the boy seemed to be the only long-term residents and after five days of lurking through the Leaky Cauldron she finally gathered the courage to enter Diagon Alley, she was getting tired of sticking out like a sore thumb, not to mention it collided with her training to call attention. Attention had been for the priests, not her.

She asked Tom to open the passageway for her and he did so more than willingly. The sight that met her was quite interesting. Before her laid a narrow street packed with people and everywhere she looked where stores, colorful and strange stores. She carefully moved forward, feeling more and more as if she was sticking out horribly and her desire for suitable clothes was increasing quickly.

Though Tom had said something about currency exchange so she guessed that was her first stop. The bank wasn't difficult to find, it was the largest of the building and apparently the bank was called Gringotts. She hesitated when she saw the creatures standing flanking the door, she was old enough to recognize the Goblins and to know that they weren't the nicest creatures to deal with.

The wizards and witches coming in and out didn't seem to have a problem with them though. Her main problem with them had nothing to do with that they were flanking the doors, but rather that they had been prone to send petty grave robbers to rob graves of the ancient Pharaohs for as long as she could remember. It had been so five thousand years ago and it was so now. They were excellent smiths, but most of their raw materials, especially around the Mediterranean had been stolen from graves and royal mines. The conflict of the goblins claiming that the mines were theirs had often been ridiculous, for most of the mines they had claimed to be theirs had been started by villagers who hoped to strike gold, or some other precious metal. She had overseen the activities when careless villagers hoped to find good money and had saved more than one of them.

Some mines were indeed goblin mines and it had been the royal armies task to keep the people away from them. It was just that the goblins were so effective that their own mines always ran dry very quickly and so they went to the villagers' mines at nighttime and stole their ore, being as effective as they were the damage done to the villagers was substantial. The goblins had also always had a keen eye on the ingots kings and queens had been buried with.

She shook her head and decided not to think too much about that now. If she had to deal with goblins she had to remain civil and calm. She walked in through the first set of doors and the goblins ignored her much to her relief. Before her was a new set of doors, silver with a warning.

Enter, stranger, but take heed  
Of what awaits the sin of greed  
For those who take, but do not earn,  
Must pay most dearly in their turn.  
So if you seek beneath our floors  
A treasure that was never yours,  
Thief, you have been warned, beware  
Of finding more than treasure there.

She scoffed. Hypocrites. She opened the doors and wondered how many of the treasures the goblins owned were made of materials that had never been theirs. She came into a large room, filled with wizards and witches, along the walls was a long counter and there were goblins sitting behind it. Eventually she found a sign that said 'foreign exchange' and noticed there was no line. She walked up to the goblin and noticed displeased that they were sitting so high up so they could look down on everyone. Damn goblins.

"I'd like to exchange US dollars for … what you have here", she said with only the slightest hesitation. She had earned a lot more money while she had been in America than she had in Great Britain, not to mention that the pound could still come in handy. Seeing as she nearly always worked outside the law and didn't want to be traced she had always had cash and nothing else. Now this came in handy.

"Put the amount of money you want transfer on the scales", said the goblin condescendingly and made a little gesture towards the golden scales before him.

She put first a single dollar bill on the scales, to see what happened. One silver and nineteen small bronze coins appeared on the scales on the other side of the scales, even though the coins had to be heavier than the single piece of cotton, the scales remained balanced. This intrigued her. In order to be on the safe side she transferred all her fighting money she had earned in the last two years and soon realized that this was no laughing matter. The currency these wizards and witches used was heavy and when she stood there, rather crestfallen, with over a thousand golden coins and a few silver and bronze ones she had nowhere to put it.

"Would the miss like to open an account with us?" the goblin asked and for a second she thought he looked amused.

"No", she said quickly. "I'll probably won't be able to come and get it when I need it anytime soon."

"We sell equipment for … people with your problem", the goblin said, noting her not very suitable attire. He reached beneath the counter and conjured what looked like a golden colored coin purse. "All your gold will fit in here." He demonstrated it by putting all her money in it, leaving only three golden coins on the scales, that had now gotten severely out of balance. "These three galleons are the payment."

"Give me three of those", she said. "If there was one thing she had learned it was to never keep all her money in the same place.

The goblin nodded, extracted six more galleons and handed her three bags, one filled, two empty. The dollars magically disappeared and she was dismissed. Quickly she left Gringotts, happy to be away from the goblin bank. Now it was time for clothes.

She searched Diagon Alley, having no problems to locate Madam Malkins Robes for All Occasions. She entered the store and saw a short witch run all over the place, taking sizes here, correcting something there on people who were standing on round raised platforms. She patiently waited until the with had time and approached her. "Hogwarts robes, dear? What house?"

"I'm not a Hogwarts student", she said annoyed. "I merely want regular, simple robes."

"Oh", the witch said taken aback but gathered herself quickly. "Go stand on there", she said and pointed towards one of the empty platforms. "What color and model do you fancy?"

"Something that doesn't impair movement, something that isn't in the way", she said, wanting to be able to fight. She had hated the many years in which it had been demanded of women to wear long dresses that hindered any type of fight or flight. She had often pretended to be a boy, finding that hiding her breasts was a lot easier than to walk around in a dress.

"How do you mean?" the witch asked confused.

She decided a quick lie would be best. "I practice martial arts, I want a robe that allows me to practice it. Do you have sand colored?" Two measuring tapes flew towards her and started measuring her rather thoroughly, annoyingly thoroughly.

"I have sand colored, yes. Want any pattern?"

"No."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do. I'm not really used to such demands." The witch rummaged around and conjured a large square patch of sand colored fabric. It levitated towards her and as the witch pointed her wand at it started forming around her. It went rather quickly and soon she was dressed in something that almost reminded her of what the ancient Greek wore. The fabric ended a bit above her knees, had no sleeves and a brown belt to keep it tight around the body. The robe had formed itself over her clothes.

"Do you want to see what it looks like without your muggle clothes?"

"Muggle?" she asked confused.

"Non-magical folk", the witch explained as if it was the most well known thing in the world.

"Sure", she said and suddenly, magically her regular clothes were gone. The robe adapted itself after her actual body, the one without clothes and she was even more satisfied. There was just one minor detail and the witch was staring at it right then.

"Wow", the witch breathed. "Those are … amazing."

She had to do a conscious attempt not to try to hide her arms. Her arms were filled with tattoos in silver and gold, in truth they looked to clear to be realistic, as if someone had placed bits of actual gold and silver in her arms. In the regular world these tattoos either frightened people or led to a lot of questions.

"You should really let them show. I know muggles can be pesky about magical markings, but they're amazing. I don't recognize them though, are they Egyptian?"

So the witch recognized them for what they were, magical markings, binding markings. Markings that forever bound and instructed her to the task she had sworn to, though in the last five thousand years they had been silent, unmoving.

"What does it say there?" the witch asked and pointed at a marking on her customers shoulder.

"Atem", she replied wearily.

"What does it mean? Of course, if you're allowed to say, I know many of those carrying magical markings aren't suppose to tell and … well … most of them wouldn't enter my shop … or any other decent shop for that matter … but … " The witch fell silent and fear radiated from her.

"Atem is a name, an old name of a man long since dead." So people with magical markings had a bad reputation, the witch had quite clearly feared her. "I am not dangerous to you or anyone else, these marking have stilled."

"They look brilliant", the witch said. "I think you should show them, if they don't move around anymore people will not feel threatened by them.

In secret she would really wish to show them. For as long as she had served her Pharaoh she had proudly shown her markings to everyone, they were a symbol of both her loyalty and status. She paid for the robe, matching sandals and a more discreet light brown winter robe with bronze fastenings. She got her regular clothes back and she packed them in her bag, with her arms proudly bare she walked out on the street, at once calling less attention to herself now that she was out of her 'muggle' clothes.

Her next dilemma was Ollivanders. She was no stranger to magic, Mahad had taught them all basics and even a special little brand of magic especially for the Pharaoh's Guardians. But from what she had seen these wizards used a magic entirely different than her own. She didn't think she'd be able to use a wand.

Eventually she decided to go anyway. Magic was a powerful weapon and all mastery of it was another weapon in her arsenal. Especially if she could learn to use it the way these wizards could, so casually, as if magic didn't require the faintest of efforts.

She entered a dusty and narrow shop, filled with small boxes. The man was so small and pale that she almost missed him among the boxes, he walked towards her. "I have never sold you a wand before", he stated. "My name is Ollivander. What brings you here?"

"A wand", she stated dryly."

"Of course. What wand did you used to have?"

"I have never owned a wand before", she admitted.

"Curious", Ollivander said. He took her in, his eyes fastening on the magical tattoos. "I can see you have some affinity for magic, I just don't see how that could be accomplished without a wand. Well, let's give it a try." Again a tape measure came into the picture, though this one didn't have any markings that she understood and it measured rather strange things. "Which is your wand-arm?"

"I'm left-handed", she said dryly as the tape measured around her neck, giving her the feeling it would choke her.

"Hm. Let's try this one. Ebony, dragon heartstring, hard."

She took it and looked at it, not certain what to do. She waved it and nothing happened.

"Definitely not that one", Ollivander said and handed her a new one. "Cedar, Phoenix feather, unyielding."

She took it and waved it and the most extraordinary thing happened. From her chest a spectral sphinx appeared, as if it had taken a leap out of her. The sphinx was larger than a regular lion, big as a horse, her eyes and hair were black and her fur golden. She roared, the wand snapped in two and then the sphinx vanished.

Both equally shocked they stared at the pieces of the wand that now laid pathetically on the floor. "I'll repay you for the wand that I broke", she said.

"No need", Ollivander said, still sounding positively shocked. "Though I think there is no wand powerful enough in my shop – or anywhere else in the world – to channelize the magic you possess. I think you should leave."

She left and it was only after she had vanished from sight that Ollivander realized that he hadn't asked for a name.

* * *

So Snow Elves, your turn, write me something motivational

I didn't have the time to really read this over, it was either do it in a hurry or wait a week. So I hurried. You're welcome to point out every flaw though and I'll correct it.

(Yes, yes, the YGO part will come, jeez, patience)


	2. Shreds

Getting over my writers block isn't going very well. 

* * *

The new world was a place for miracles but not the miracles that she was looking for. The magic that these people used was fundamentally different from the one she knew, it was simpler but also weaker ruled by outer factors and not only inner. It was not the strength of the soul that determined what these witches and wizards could do.

And witches and wizards were very human, they had flaws. The face of Sirius Black screamed at her everywhere, she had never liked wanted posters, they dehumanized people so, but the moving wizarding version was even worse. Black was everywhere, Black was nowhere.

The boy was Harry Potter, it seemed everyone knew him though she had no idea why. Just like her he kept to himself and she imagined him to be just as much a loner as she was. She was proven wrong one night when an enormous family of redheads moved into the Leaky Cauldron. When Harry walked into the Leaky Cauldron with a redhead boy and a girl, who seemed to be the only one who didn't belong to the family, it became clear that Harry Potter was not a loner.

It soon became apparent they had been in Egypt. Even in this strange world the ancient Egyptians intrigued the people of the modern world. The remaining Guardians had been known to drop clues now and then in order to further the modern world's understanding of the land the Guardians had been born and raised in. She missed her home more than she'd ever admit even to herself.

She did enjoy being able to walk around without covering her arms, though it seemed it gave her something of a thug status. More than once she had been given directions to Knock-turn Alley, a place not much to her liking. Luckily no one seemed to recognize them. Atem's reign and almost everything before that was shrouded in mystery.

She ate in silence, still not entirely adapt to the food they served in the Leaky Cauldron when she saw the girl looking at her, more specifically her tattoos. There was no doubt that the girl was pondering whether she should come and ask about them or if she should refrain. She wasn't old, maybe fourteen. The Guardian knew very well that children were the most dangerous of all, they had a curiosity that went unpaired with fear.

"We tried to shut him in a pyramid but mom stopped us", one of the red-heads said to Harry and she forgot about the girl at once. Angrily she stood up, calling more attention to herself than was wise. She walked up to her room but when she passed them she couldn't help but snap at them. "Pyramids are sacred burial sights, not playthings for ignorant tourists as yourselves!"

She loudly shut the door behind herself and threw herself on the bed. Within her lived a serious dislike for tourists, especially that type of tourists. Scientists she accepted, historical fanatics that came to bask in the glory of what had been were endurable but sightseers was one the things she hated most.

She had lived before the pyramids were built, but she wished one had been built in Atem's name. If anyone deserved a grave so impressive and honorable it was him. She tried not to think about the small fact that there never had been a body to bury. That her king had vanished was even worse than that he had died. It had been she who had erased all known records of his name, it was the last order he had ever given her. When she had returned the battle was over and her king gone.

Set had told her and the other surviving Guardians they could do what they wished. It should have been a scandal, but it hadn't been. People were too tired, too shocked, too grieved to care about traditions and about how things used to be. Guardians were supposed to give their lives for their Pharaoh and in recorded history no Guardian had outlasted their Pharaoh, not until Atem vanished.

The Guardians had offered their services to Set but he had declined. Atem had given his life to protect his people from the sins of his uncle and Set wanted all knowledge of the Millennium Items to be forgotten by the common people, just to be sure he wanted all knowledge of Ka and Ba to be lost too and he had given them the order not to share this knowledge with anyone and live as normal people. Set himself had normal people as Guardians.

Atem had ordered the Millennium Items to be protected and Isis had herself started a clan of Tomb Keepers that kept the Millennium Items safe. Only they had extensive knowledge of the Millennium Items and therefore remained hidden. Only the Tomb Keepers knew Atem's last orders word by word, but they had forgotten his name, Isis had never passed on that legacy.

Nameless Pharaoh … That was how he was known now. Nameless Pharaoh. She found the idea ridiculous, his name was worth remembering, he deserved to be remembered. But he had wanted all knowledge of his name to vanish, for whatever reason. She never learned what the Pharaoh had done, all she knew to this day was that when she returned her Pharaoh was gone, the Millennium Pendant was in tiny pieces and no one would be allowed to speak his name ever again. He had given Isis and Set orders, but since the Guardians had been reduced to common peasants they weren't told.

And they lived as peasants, most of them left Egypt and started to work as sell swords but she had remained to help rebuild the countryside. It had taken her a few years to realize that she wasn't getting any older. When she went to the palace she was denied access and no one would hear her story, the markings that once had invoked respect and obedience now worked against her.

She never saw Set or anyone else again after they had been dismissed and neither Tomb Keeper nor royals knew that something was preventing the Guardians from dying and disappearing. She knew about the Tomb Keepers though. Once the Tomb Keepers had been one big clan, but conflicts had formed and a vendetta followed that splintered the Tomb Keepers into several families. This conflict had occurred many hundred years ago and most had never seen the significance of this family feud, but she had.

She had lost track entirely when Isis took the Tomb Keepers underground, protecting Atem's tomb and the Millennium items in great secret. Many thousand years later she picked up on them again, because of a their feud. They had forgotten about the Guardians entirely and they certainly didn't know that a few of them were still alive. Ever since she had been keeping an eye on them, best she could.

She had not been pleased. The Millennium Ring had vanished and the Millennium Puzzle was no longer in the tomb where it had been placed. Not to mention that the Tomb Keepers had turned to crude methods of storing information. The initiation rite was a cruel one. The Guardians initiation rite had also been painful, but at least they had been willing to undergo it.

Pegasus J. Crawford was also a complication. She had noticed the similarities between the game he had created and the ancient Diahas they had preformed. Not to mention that he had the Millennium Eye. Pegasus hided this and so far she was fairly certain she was the only outsider who knew. She was concerned, the eye was probably the Millennium Item that had caused them most trouble, it had belonged to the most corrupt of the priests. The eye should have been under closest surveillance, but now it was in the hands of a man who seemed to know an awful lot, but had no reason or right to.

Certainly there were changes, more significant changes than had occurred in the last several thousand years. Yet she had chosen to come here, to this new world, both for her own safety and because of the creatures she had seen. She shuddered at the thought alone.

Tomorrow she would take action. She couldn't remain here and just wait for something to happen, she had done that enough. At the moment she was too tired. She curled up in bed and dreamed a painful dream of her Pharaoh putting the Millennium Puzzle back together in the room of a teenage boy.

* * *

There was activity in the Leaky Cauldron that morning. It seemed the only other resident that had stayed as long as she had was leaving. Words such as 'train' and 'Hogwarts' fluttered by, the same words she had been hearing every day the past week. A lot of people in Diagon Alley seemed to be heading there and it hadn't taken long for her to realize that Hogwarts was a school.

It was one of the few things that had made her laugh out loud. She had started to realize that these people practiced a very crude and simplified version of the magic Mahad and Mana had practiced. Mahad and Mana had been the ancestors of this magic, the reason people respected her so much was not because she had magical tattoos, that just caused fear, it was because they were Egyptian. Their magic came from Egypt and they very well knew it. It seemed the purer version of magic that Mahad had practiced and had tried to teach Mana was gone.

When the large family had disappeared together with the curious girl and Harry Potter a sort of peace settled over the inn. Finally, she needed some peace. She sneaked up to her room and sat with crossed legs on the bed. She placed her hands on her knees, palms facing upwards, opening her body to her surrounding, making the task ahead of her easier. She might not know how to use magic, but she could utilize the strength within her. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Easily she slipped into the Ka that stirred when she connected with it.

Almond eyes opened and four soft paws stood on the floor of her room in the Leaky Cauldron. Everything appeared sharper through the eyes of her Ka and that was the most important thing, her Ka helped her see while nobody could see it. She leaped through the wall, her Ka not abiding to the laws of physics and ran over London, both magical and non-magical London, unhindered by the barriers the wizards had placed upon their world.

Her Ka was fast, incredibly fast, faster than the fastest airplane, faster than anything. As per usual she made an emotional trip down to Egypt. If there was something that hurt her it was the way the country had turned out. Atem had given his life to make Egypt a good country, a peaceful country and it had lasted a hundred years. Now there was nothing left of his sacrifice, it wasn't even remembered.

It hadn't taken her long to get from London to Egypt, but now she slowed down and with normal speed the sphinx walked over the streets. The people had abandoned their gods and replaced them with others. Anhur and Sekhmet had been forgotten, Ra, Isis, Anubis and Horus had become the main characters of sagas. They too deserved much better. She had seen the Gods, the three powerful Kas that Atem's soul had housed, proof that the Pharaoh truly was a descendant from Horus. Everyone had talked about it, entire Egypt had told the story of the Pharaoh who had commanded the three Gods. But now everything had been lost, lost to the ages, everything but she.

It hurt.

She gathered herself and focused. She wasn't one with her Ka to take a trip down memory lane. She closed her eyes to the suffering of Egypt's people and within a few seconds she was back in the air and had left Egypt behind. She put her nose in the air and sniffed, even though the sphinx had a human looking nose she didn't do under for the feline whose body she had and on a more cosmic plane that gave her a great insight in what was going on.

She returned to London and kept sniffing the air. The creature she had seen had induced fear, fear had a strong scent, especially to a Ka. All human emotions had a strong scent. The London air was filled with the scent of lust, love, anger, happiness, worry, sorrow and fear, but not fear as strong as the one she was looking for.

A new world had opened to her even through the eyes of her Ka. Now that she knew about the magical world she could see it and below her stretched things she would have never seen before. One of those was a gleaming red steam engine to the north. She followed it, knowing from the sign on the train that it was the Hogwarts Express. The steam engine had caught her eye because they were no longer in use anymore, not for real travel anyway.

She followed it, curious to see the castle that taught children magic. Amused she thought about Mana, Mahad had his hands full with teaching her alone. If that train was filled with students she felt sorry for the teachers, and feeling sorry for anyone was something she rarely did. Mana had caused them a lot of trouble, she had been one of the few people who hadn't been intimidated by the Guardians. Even the priests had been uncomfortable around the rare but intimidating and rigid presence of the Guardians. Eventually one of the Guardians had gotten so tired of Mana that Mana had been victim to the full might of a Guardian and Mana had never again bothered them. Instead she had satisfied herself with trying her tricks on regular guards.

Mana once said, after Atem had disappeared, that she was immensely grateful that the Guardian had lost his patience with her. He had given a not so friendly demonstration of what he could do and called upon his Ka. It had been because of this that Mana had later figured out how to summon her own Ka and by doing so saving Mahad and the other priests.

Then a strong biting cold sensation hit her and the train came to a stop. The sensation was so strong that she was almost thrown back into her own body and disconnected from the mind of her Ka. Whenever she was in her Ka her Ka and Ba fused in a way that never occurred in a regular body and her own urges and that of her Ka were almost one. She couldn't help the roar that came from her muzzle.

Something was pulling at her, she had to fight to remain connected to her Ka. Like a lonely person fighting the wind of a strong, unforgiving storm she and her Ka fought to get close to the source of the icy cold. She recognized the cold, this was one of the creatures she had seen stealing a soul. She had not been prepared for its effect on her to multiply so many times while she stood in direct connection to her Ka.

Angrily she fought on, her claws leaving marks on the roof of the train. There were children in this train, many of them, it was unacceptable for a being like that to threaten those whose Kas had hardly developed. At the same time she was tormented, she was seeing things she had once hidden in the deepest recesses of her soul and she wished nothing dearer than to return to her own body and abandon this fight. But as always the thought of her king gave her the strength to fight on, he would have been furious had he known of this threat to innocent children.

Eventually the sensation became so strong that she knew that this terrible being was right beneath her. She forced her astral head through the roof of the train and was shocked at what she saw. Nothing quite appeared in the same way through the eyes of her Ka, that existed more in a spiritual than mortal plane, everything living had bright colors that said something about the true aspect of the being. Only rarely she had seen something that was amortal, but this thing was.

Beneath her sat five children, thirteen or so, one of them seemed to be unconscious and had the amortal beings full attention. A single adult was with them, wand raised, ready to protect the children. To her eyes it didn't look like he was doing much good, although his aura clearly stated he would do anything to protect these children. She jumped down through the roof and landed agile on the floor, her paws avoiding the unconscious boy. Though she was invisible to the wizards and witches the amortal being was quite aware of her presence. It made a hissing sound and backed away from the compartment. That was alright with her, her Ka was big and the hallway gave her more room to maneuver.

In essence Kas were amortal beings, they were never alive and couldn't be killed, but she didn't really think Kas could be classified that way since they were always connected to a Ba. Kas were a class of their own. But that was not what was important, amortal beings couldn't be killed, at least that was common belief. There was however an exception to that rule, an amortal being could destroy another one and in that a Ka would do fine, Ba or not. She didn't hesitate, she had already seen what the being could do and filled with anger she charged, her sharp claws ripping through it and effectively shredding it into pieces.

People were watching, but they could see nothing else than the disgusting abnormality being torn to shreds. The man who had been with the children stared in disbelief, but there was something cautious over him, as if he feared the same thing would turn on them.

Pleased she noted the boy was back on his feet, albeit a bit confused. Her work was done, but she stayed around. People came rushing over. The man chased the children back to their compartments and when other adults arrived at the scene it became clear that they had never seen anything like it before.

A woman with a stern face and a tight bun talked animately with the man. "Are you sure that's what happened Remus?" she asked the man.

"Without a doubt Minerva", Remus said as he stared at the spot where the amortal being had been shredded. Nothing was left of it. Amortal beings didn't have bodies and once they were destroyed all form of body they had ever had was turned into nothingness.

"I hold little love for the dementors of Azkaban, but this is …" A second man didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence. He was remarkably short and his white hair stood on an end. "I thought they couldn't be killed?"

She reacted strongly on the name. So these amortal beings were called dementors. And of Azkaban? She knew what Azkaban was, it was a prison, a prison for wizards. So this was were these creatures came from. There were not many crimes that she could imagine that would justify being forced to exist together with these creatures. Madness was sure to thrive next to them and nothing was more dangerous than madness.

Minerva looked grim. "They disintegrate with time or when emotion is scarce. But I have never heard of a dementor being destroyed. They're like poltergeists, they just_ are_."

"I for one am glad to see it gone", Remus said calmly. He glanced behind him, at the compartment where he and the children had been sitting. "It attacked the children."

"Who?" Minerva asked. "Who did it attack?"

"Harry Potter", he replied.

"Of course", Minerva sighed. "Dumbledore will be furious. The moment we get back to Hogwarts I think it's best if madam Pomfrey takes a look at him."

The short man nodded gravely. Then the lights went back on and the train started moving again. "I'll go back to the students, see how they're doing", Remus said, turned around briskly and walked back into his compartment.

"It's just ten minutes left before we arrive", Minerva said. "Let's go see if any other students fared ill during this unacceptable search. I don't understand what Fudge is thinking." Together the two remaining adults strolled off, Minerva still muttering about how unacceptable everything was.

Even though she had no reason to stick around she would quite like to see the school. She jumped up onto the roof of the train so she could have a proper view. The landscape was beautiful, though the rain stole a lot of it from view. They were in the north she realized as the cold rain beat down on her, she didn't feel it. Eventually the train pulled to a stop at a tiny station, with a few rickety old buildings around it. The place appeared to be a small, strange town. A sign said Hogsmeade station and she assumed that the town was called Hogsmeade. The students welled out from the train, they ranged from about ten to twenty if she had to guess. A big man called out for the first years and the youngest children approached the giant hesitantly. The rest of the students walked a bit away from the station and climbed into carriages pulled by skinny, black horses with wings.

The carriages set into motion and she paced next to them. Strangely enough it seemed the black horses could see her, but they didn't react much, curiosity was all she perceived from them. She had no trouble keeping up. With the body of a lion there was little effort in keeping their pace, especially since they were hindered by the weight of the carriages.

They paced through a black iron wrought gate and soon she saw the school. Calling it a school was an understatement, it was a castle and she didn't understand why this amount of students would need a castle that big. She ran ahead, spurring the horses who playfully wanted to follow, but they couldn't.

The doors to the castle stood open. She ran up the stairs and did an attempt to get into the building and bashed against an invisible wall. She hissed and clawed at the seemingly empty air, but the barrier was definitely there. She moved aside as students started to enter the castle, clearly not being hindered by any form of barrier. She didn't move aside because they could touch her, over the course of five thousand years her Ka had learned many tricks and skills, becoming invisible and incorporeal were just two of them. Kas usually were quite visible and they could most definitely touch the living breathing common people, but the skill was a handy one. The reason she moved aside was because she could feel it when somebody walked through her and she hated it.

She turned around as the last carriage arrived and walked down the stairs again, her tail swinging behind her disappointedly. She headed back the same way she had come from and when she reached the iron gate she stopped abruptly. Two dementors flanked the gate and a third was just leaving.

She had taken the one in the train by surprise and it had been no art shredding him. But this was different, there was three of them and they would be impossible to take by surprise. Shredding a dementor was not a matter of seconds, it came rather close to a minute or two. If she was busy shredding one, she left an opening for the other two.

She sneaked away, deciding to find a different way back, but it was to no avail. There were dementors everywhere. The school was surrounded by them. She wondered if the people who slept in the castle tonight knew about it. Eventually she found a lone dementor a bit away from something that looked much like a gathering of greenhouses. He was not quite as on his guard as the others had been. She stalked close and then, claws ready, she jumped against him, putting some nice tears in him. The dementor hissed furiously and tried to hit her, but she jumped out of the way before quickly moving in again and tearing some more at him. A rotten hand appeared from the black cloak and gripped her so quickly that it took her by surprise and she didn't have time to dodge, instead he lifted her up and threw her against the wall. As she recovered herself she looked around herself. What wall had he thrown her against? The grounds seemed to be open, there didn't even seem to be a tree she could have hit.

Angrily and a bit confused she lunged for the dementor again. A few more shreds fell off the dementor and she jumped back again to avoid his angry, uncoordinated attacks. Again she hit the wall. Looking behind herself it seemed that whatever she hit was another barrier. What concerned her was that this barrier blocked her way out.

At last this dementor too vanished as his amortal state of being ceased to be. Quite satisfied with herself she strolled along the barrier, avoiding the dementors that rarely seemed to be alone but she couldn't find a single part of it that was passable. Somebody must have raised it after the last carriage had passed through the gate.

There was only one thing left to do. She focused on her body, trying to detach her mind from that of her Ka. Her Ka was a very primal being. Most Kas were primal beings, but primal beings came usually with savage personalities and very few of those able to summon their Ka had primal Kas. Most Kas were quite sophisticated, as it required a lot of discipline to summon ones own Ka. She remembered how surprised she had been when it had turned out that Mana's Ka was a sophisticated one, abnormally sophisticated even. That her own Ka was a primal one hadn't surprised her, in heart and soul she was a warrior and her Ka was a predator, they went well together. The biggest disadvantage of a primal Ka was that they were more difficult to connect to and to let go off, in return the connection was always much stronger, although that too had its pros and cons. Disconnecting from her Ka was always something that had been a challenge to her.

With strength of mind and hard work she soon found herself panting back in the Leaky Cauldron. Her Ka was safely back inside her, where the other half of her soul belonged. She sighed relieved, she had been afraid that the barrier would trap her Ka even if she returned to her body. That would have been her death, she was sure of it. Most people just went into a vegetative state when their Ka was taken from them, but her connection to her Ka was a lot stronger than that of regular people and she had suspected it for a long time that if her Ka was lost she would die.

She stood up and went to take a bath. The water was scalding hot, but she enjoyed it. As she was encased by water and incense she thought, deeply and objectively, as she had been taught. Apparently dementors were gathering around Hogwarts and for some reason someone had put up a barrier, keeping all amortal beings out of the castle but also close to the school grounds. A strange thing to do. The dementors wouldn't be leaving and she needed to get to them, she wanted to destroy them, all of them, in the name of her Pharaoh and by the weight of her own conscious. Beings like these shouldn't exist.

She also knew she wouldn't be able to get in again. As long as that barrier was up she wouldn't be able to get in. The only way to get her Ka through that barrier was to get herself through it first. It had been apparent that living beings had no issue passing through it. If she could summon her Ka inside that barrier she would have no trouble getting to the dementors.

She got up, dried herself off and a put on her muggle clothes. She was quite fond of her new ones, but if she was going to travel to Scotland she was doing it the muggle way and she didn't want to attract attention. She walked down the stairs and as per usual Tom was right there at her service. It had taken him some time to get used to her markings, but once he had he had treated her as overbearing as before. "I'm checking out", she said coolly and handed him the key to the room she had occupied.

"Alrighty", Tom said. "Need anything before you leave? A drink? Anything?"

She shook her head. She paid what was left to pay, turned around and walked out of the leaky cauldron, into central London. She smiled as she saw the people hurry past her. Somehow it was relief to be back in the world she knew and understood.

* * *

I used to have a lot of clever ways to tell people to review.  
I'm seriously out of practice


	3. Centaurs

Elections in Sweden have come to an end. Although we all celebrate that the republicans are hereby gone and we have a democratic government now, no one (sane) is happy. We have a balance of power situation, exercised by the most racist, homofobic and anti-equality party we have, Sverigedemokraterna … :(

* * *

She both hated and loved traveling by bus. It was slow and often tedious, she had no control of what the vehicle was doing and there was no space for a fight, but at the same time you saw so much. There was something comfortable about feeling the bus move beneath you, the sound of the engine and the landscape flashing by. Especially in these buses, that were for traveling long distances and therefore were quite comfortable, she could relax. Sleep she couldn't, not in a place where people could come and go as they pleased, but relaxing itself was luxury she was unused to.

Traveling from London to Scotland was quite a journey and when she finally got there she entered the first motel she could find, asked for a room, paid in cash, walked up and fell asleep on the bed with her clothes still on. She woke up at midday the day after. She took a shower to wash away the hours traveling, not sure when she would have access to that luxury again. Twenty minutes later she was back on the street.

What she needed to do now was to find the railroad that the Hogwarts express used. She doubted it would be visible to muggle eyes and she wasn't sure where it was located. She summoned her Ka, this time not one with her, instead she stood next to the person whose soul she was part of, patiently waiting for instructions. "Go find the railroad the Hogwarts express used, when you've found it return to me and lead the way."

Her Ka nodded coolly and took a few steps into the air before sprinting off. While her Ka was on that mission she would get herself something to eat, that and some supplies. She suspected that she'd be doing some camping, fairly certain Hogwarts would not accept her with open arms. She got herself a small tent, an axe, a knife she didn't mind destroying on trees and other things she'd need to cut, a backpack, some rope, matches, a sleeping roll, sleeping bag and conserved food to last a week or two. She could hunt, she just wasn't sure if the creatures in the forest she had seen were eatable. She packed everything and after having consumed a great amount of fresh food her Ka finally returned to her. She set out on her journey, calmly and patiently she found the railroad, climbed onto it and started following it, hoping no trains used it at regular intervals.

The walk was long, the sun was setting and all the while her Ka had walked next to her, there as a silent companion. Through the years of loneliness the only friend she had truly had was her Ka, her best friend was part of her and that made for an annoying paradox. She was her own best friend and she was cold and distant and thus was her Ka. She had been told about Kisara, the peasant girl whose Ka and Ba had always been fused. It had been Kisara who had inspired her to learn to become one with her Ka, something no other Guardian or Priest could. Closest to that ability had been Isis, who with her necklace had been able to see through the eyes of her Ka, Spiria.

Isis had gone underground and Kisara had died. But she was still around and she had perfected that ability, but unlike the other Priests and Guardians the fellowship she and her Ka felt was based on duty and not on affection as the others had. The moment this thought occurred to her the Ka faded and vanished back where it belonged, inside her, and she walked on alone.

It was dark by the time she reached Hogsmeade. The weather was as weary as the day before, the wind howled and cold curtains of rain soaked her and her equipment. She walked towards the gates through which she had passed the day before, but already from a distance she could see the dementors who guarded it, three of them. The gate was closed.

She went south, trying to find the forest that she had seen on the school grounds. Perhaps she could pass through there. All she needed to do was get inside the barrier. She walked around the school grounds. They were even bigger than she had initially realized and it took her the remaining night to find the forest. She headed north, towards the school. The forest was dark and sinister in a way forests didn't tend to be. Even in the early light of dawn the forest remained dark. She had all her senses on edge, ready for anything. She sensed things, things she couldn't quite comprehend, things she wasn't sure she wanted to comprehend. She didn't see them, couldn't hear them, but she felt them, some felt threatening, others didn't. She was being watched, but until now nothing had made a move, not to stop her and not to aid her. Maybe that was how this forest functioned, maybe everything just minded their own business.

She plowed on through the thick bushes that seemed to cover the entire forest floor where she was walking. They were sharp and the thorns pierced her skin here and there, she ignored the pain and went on. Losing all sense of direction she did her very best to keep heading in the same direction, but on more than one occasion she returned to a part she recognized from earlier. The forest was so thick that she couldn't see the sky to help her navigate.

Eventually the forest thinned and she could move through the forest properly, but the sky was still hidden from view. It was dark, even though she knew that it must be nearing midday the forest remained dark. Where she had grown up forests had been a myth, something parents told their children, a fairytail. She was not comfortable around forests as it was normally but this forest send chills down her back. She had not been trained for fighting in forested areas and her Ka was too big to maneuver properly in the dense growth of a forest. Some later leaders had fought in forests, people she had followed and she had picked up one or two things about fighting in a forest, but that had been different from the training she had received when she was little. Jenzi had been the one who had trained the Guardians in all types of combat and combat strategics. He had never believed in forests. Unlike the Guardians Jenzi had died, he hadn't been one of them, he had just been part of creating them. No other trainer had ever been as good as Jenzi.

The one thing she had learned that survival was easier in a forest than it was in the desert. It was childplay to survive in the forest once you had mastered the desert. That was also her plan now, to camp in the forest while she waged her war on the dementors. No one in the school needed to know she was there.

Eventually, again nearing the evening, she saw the school through the remaining trees. She also saw a hut, standing close to the edge of the forest. A big man stood outside the hut and was poking around in something that appeared to be a garden. She smiled. Maybe surviving in the forest would be even easier than she had thought to begin with. Stealing some crops from that little lot wouldn't be difficult, quite the opposite. She needed so little the man wouldn't even realize some of his crops were gone.

Having been awake longer than she ought she pulled back into the forest. She had passed a cave earlier and it would be a good spot to camp, dry, sheltered and fires would be hidden from view. It took her longer to find it than she would have liked, she went the wrong way once or twice. She had to get to know the forest if she was going to survive.

The cave was big, big enough for her to walk into it with her back and head straight. The walls were stone, but the ground remained soil, damp soil. She walked further into the cave, hoping to find a place where the ground was dry. She didn't care much if it would be dirt or stone she went to sleep on. Tomorrow she could gather materials to make herself a princess' bed, right now she just wished to sleep. The further she got into the cave, the more she noted the presence of cobwebs. Huge cobwebs, she was about to double back, certain there would be something that did not want her there when she reached the hollow. Every part of the large room was covered in cobwebs and she turned to leave, not wishing to find out what the giant creatures wiggling beneath it were. Something heavy fell down on her, knocking her to the ground. She saw a flash of black eyes and huge pincers before she felt its pincers bury into her back. She screamed.

She didn't have along history of screaming, being able to manage most forms of pain, but this was possibly the worst pain she had ever felt. She had been shot, she had every bone in her body broken at some occasion, she had been poisoned, she had been tortured during the Spanish inquisition, but this was the worst. She turned around and knocked the thing of her back. It was huge, the size of a horse and looked suspiciously like a spider. She had been bitten by spiders before, but she wondered how much venom a creature of that size could have pumped into her body. Could it kill her?

She didn't feel like staying around and find out what more they would do to her. She dared a glance around the cave and her hopes fell. There wasn't just that one large spider, it were hundreds of them, all the size of a horse. She crawled away, the spiders coming after her. She did an attempt to stand but she couldn't, the venom was burning through her body, sapping her strength, blurring her vision.

Without having asked for it her Ka appeared. This wasn't that uncommon. Anyone with a close bond to their Ka could rely on its help when necessary. The white dragon had done that more often than not for Kisara and that was without the girl even being aware of it. Her Ka laid down and she crawled on top of it. The sphinx didn't do under for the size of the spiders and when it stood up she effortlessly carried her human on her back. Instead of fighting they ran. She wasn't sure where he Ka would be taking her and she frankly didn't care, as long as she could rest, sleep. The prelude of death she noted.

The prelude of death manifested itself differently in every person and differently for every time, but there was something specific to it, so specific that it was easily recognized even by those who had never neared death before. She had neared death before, more than once she had been convinced that she would die and always she had miraculously recovered. Sometimes she wondered if she was immortal or if she just had been lucky. She hadn't tested that theory.

The ride was uncomfortable. She bounced up and down on the back of her Ka, bruising her torso on its spine. She left a trail of blood behind her and the venom's hold on her got stronger and stronger. Her breathing got slower, her vision blackened and she couldn't hear anything anymore but the blood in her ears.

The last thing she saw was an unfamiliar face and black hide.

* * *

Yugi came home, again no idea how he had ended up so far away from his home. There were gaps in his memory that frightened him, gaps that weren't supposed to be there. Ever since he had solved the Millennium Puzzle his mind had been playing tricks on him. The only thing that was clear to him was the school festival and that he had been knocked down by a grill. Vaguely he also remembered something about an infirmary.

The thing he didn't remember was how he had ended up just a block from his school late at night, alone and confused. He headed home. This was not the first time and he feared that it wasn't the last that he would regain consciousness like this, it scared him. He walked on a bit faster, trying not to think too much about what had happened that night. First time he had lost consciousness he had returned a day later to find that Ushio had gone delirious. A lot of people that did him or his friends harm ended up in unwanted positions. Some even died.

He had not forgotten the convict that had taken Anzu hostage and that had made him deliver his order. He didn't remember what had happened then, the last thing he had remembered was that the fugitive had slapped Anzu and the next thing he knew the man had been burning up. He was fairly certain somehow that had been his doing, but he couldn't remember.

When he got home everyone seemed asleep, everyone but his grandfather who had been waiting for him. "Where have you been?"

"To school. I had to fix some things before the carnival", he lied swiftly. He wasn't comfortable lying, especially not to his grandfather, but he had little choice. His parents and grandfather would think he was crazy if they learned that he had regular loss of memory.

"This late?"

"We had some trouble. I don't think the carnival will happen."

"Hm", was all his grandfather said.

"I'm going to bed", Yugi said, truly tired. His grandfather didn't oppose and Yugi went upstairs, to his bedroom. He showered and changed into his pajamas. Crawling in bed he still couldn't stop thinking of what was going on. There were memories he was missing. Pensively he looked at the Millennium Puzzle, items from ancient Egypt had a bad name, everyone knew that but Yugi had never believed in curses. He had liked that the box had said something as awesome as that his greatest wish would be fulfilled, but it had also said something about a Shadow Game, about the powers of darkness.

Was that what was happening? Where dark powers taking him over? Was he possessed?

The morning after he found that their spot was theirs again, there stood no grill and not a single one of the students of class D was there to harass them. Confused he looked at the grim students building the carnival games back up again, running really late.

"What happened?" he asked Anzu, who was standing and giving orders all around to make sure everyone was usefull. "Did they really give us back our spot?"

She looked at him with a frown. "Haven't you heard what happened?" At Yugi's blank expression she continued. "Inogashira Goro got his face burned of. He's in the hospital, the words is he probably won't survive."

"Oh", Yugi said, taken aback. Again. Again someone had been harmed, someone he had reason to wish harm upon. "What happened?"

"It happened here at school last night. Some kind of chemical substance got in contact with the hot grill and it exploded. Some people who heard the explosion called the fire department and they found him here. Even if he survives he'll be blind and forced to breath through one of those tubes. Nobody knows the details, but it sounds strange."

Yugi swallowed uncomfortably. That was where he had been last night, he had been very close to school. Had he been responsible? He didn't know. In that case he might be a murderer. He did what he could. He put it aside, banishing all such thoughts from his head. Instead he pulled an all-nighter with his classmates and the morning after their carnival games were a big success. Especially Jonouchi, who found himself stuck with swords more than he would have liked.

* * *

Waking up was something she almost regretted. Around her the argument was loud, very loud and very heated. It seemed these people weren't happy with having her there and she wasn't very happy over being with people, unconsciouss as that. She felt better though, it seemed she had survived the spider's venom. Funny.

"It's mental! Just drop her back into the forest, she'll live!"

"We did not predict this, nowhere have we seen that this was to come. We knew of Black and of the dementors invading our territory, but we didn't know about her", a different voice said. "We need to know more!"

"She could be dangerous!" the first voice repeated. "We don't tolerate her kind! Why is she different."

"Because I can't see her!" the second voice said impatiently, steadily getting angrier. "And she had proven herself on our side."

"You don't know that! Her kind is treacherous and she may as easily turn on us as she turned on the dementors. This woman is a warrior, I will not tolerate her presence, she's too much of a danger."

"The creature that brought her to us meant no ill", a third, calm voice said, making the first two fall silent. "There are special forces at play here. The creature that brought her was ancient and powerful and yet it came to us for help, in peace. She's in over her head and I fear she doesn't know it yet."

"I'm not in over my head", she groaned and sat up. Her back ached where the spider had torn her up, but she was covered in some sort of strange forest version of bandages made out of moss, leaves and twigs. Looking around she saw what could only be centaurs. She had heard of them and at more than one occasion she had gotten a reason to believe they might be more than myth, but she hadn't ever actually met one. She only knew there were Kas formed as centaurs, often belonging to proud and unfriendly people.

"Welcome to our forest, warrior", the eldest of the three centaurs said and bowed a little. It wasn't more than a nod of the head but she only needed to see the expression on the faces of the two other centaurs to know that the gesture meant a lot. The female centaur followed swiftly, the one who had mentioned Black, but the angriest one did nothing.

She bowed her head too, best she could sitting up. Respect was always a good choice when meeting new sorts of creatures. "Pleased to meet you."

The eldest centaur had the face she had seen before passing out. He was black, his hide, his hair, his beard, his eyes, all black. The snowy skin that was stretched over a lean upper boddy stood in great contrast to his blackness. His face was broad with strong features, yet he seemed more at peace with the world around him than the two others. "You were lucky that the sphinx brought you to us, you would not have lived without our treatment."

"You have my gratitude, the spider took me by surprise." She tried to get up and after a slight struggle she was on her feet. The centaurs didn't help her, didn't offer to help her. The younger male one was on edge, as he feared she'd attack at any second. He was a mountain of muscle, with dark brown hide and tanned skin. His hair was short and sandy and his face was smooth. On his back hung a bow and a quiver filled with arrows.

"The Acromantula are dangerous creatures with a taste for human flesh", the old centaur said calmly. "The colony in the cave does not usually come in contact with people and is therefore all the more eager to eat all those they can get their pinchers on."

She wanted to reply, but she didn't get the chance. The female centaur, a palomino with long blond hair and like the men a baSre chest, beat her to it. "You're very old. I can't see you, almost not at all, the only thing I can pick up are vague indications."

"I'm very old", she admitted quietly. "How could you tell?"

"We centaurs work long and hard to unravel the mysteries of the future, to interpret the stars and see the things that cannot be seen. You I cannot see, there is a fate for this world, a path that's staked out. We do not normally intervene when what is meant to be comes to pass, Firenze didn't understand this, although I understand why he did it. But you … you don't belong on this path at all … you stand still, still in time. Just like your markings, they have frozen too."

She looked grimly upon the creatures before her. Answers, they could have answers. She didn't doubt that these creatures spoke true, but she also knew they would not relent any answers to her.

"Tell us you're name", the elder one said, "and we will tell you ours."

"I've had many names", she said and paused. What would she tell them? Would she make up yet another name for herself, another new name to wear? She considered it, but she feared that they would take it as an insult and she didn't have the energy to deal with angry centaurs. "But the name I was given at birth is Gararai."

"An Egyptian name", the elder one said and he eyed her markings. She wondered if he could read them. "An old one at that. My name is Brynjar, the seer is Pavana and the warrior is Juvan. We live here, you intrude here."

"I did not know I was intruding", she said calmly.

"We know you didn't, that's why you are still alive. We also know that you are the reason that some of the dementors have … vanished, something believed to be impossible. Why? What is your quarrel with them?" Brynjar asked.

"The creature that brought me here was my Ka, half of my soul." She looked at the centaurs. Maybe they had learned of the koncept of Ka and Ba, but their faces remained blank and she assumed not. "Every soul exists of Ka and Ba, together they form a whole, a soul. The Ba is our energy, the force that gives us life, Ka is what gives us our personality, it is us in our truest form. Some people have a very special bond to their Ka, a bond that can only be born from understanding and strength."

It seemed the dementors understood what she was saying, rather attentively they listened. Her words seemed to captivate them, fascinate them.

"Several thousand years ago, before I stopped aging, before I became whatever it is I am today, the royal court had means to split a persons soul in two, divide Ka from Ba. It's a terrible thing, Ka is taken and Ba is left, turning the person into a ghost of what they were, hardly a person at all. It was used as punishment. Only the vilest of criminals had their souls tested and split. Your Ka reveals your true self. If a thief is captured and the Ka we find is one that has grown on sorrow and hopelessness that person is not punished but helped. But if the Ka we find exists of malice and contempt the Ka is removed and that person can never do harm again. The Kas they captured were sealed and could be called upon in battle, like that they still serviced the realm and paid for their crimes. But never, never would anyone take a persons entire soul!"

She took a short break, letting the words sink in.

"A few weeks ago I saw a dementor for the first time. What I saw it do is without a doubt the worst I've ever seen and I've seen many wars. He stole a persons soul, not half their soul, but their entire soul and it consumed it. That very act is an abomination and any creature that practices it will answer to me."

Juvan chuckled, he was still wary of her but it seemed he agreed with her. "We hold no love for the dementors either."

"If that's why you are here, why can't I see?" Pavana asked, now more wary than Juvan. "What has caused you to stand still?"

"I don't know", she said sharply. It was a sensitive subject.

It seemed Brynjar noticed. "At ease. Very few beings are ever stuck in time and it tends to be hard on all of them. I have never before heard of a human doing this before. Were you born human?" he asked, suddenly second-guessing himself.

"I was born human", she confirmed testily. "I was born in the capital of Egypt five thousand years ago."

The centaurs exchanged a glance. "You are older than all three of us combined and that's saying something", Pavana said quietly. She turned to Brynjar. "What should we do with her."

"We do not interfere with what is meant to be", Brynjar said with a tone that refused all opposition. He looked down on her. "We centaurs never interfere with what is meant to be, you don't disturb the fate of the world and you don't belong to it so we will leave you be. The only reason we saved you was because you did us a kindness by destroying the dementors. Our lands are safe and we will tolerate your presence in them, but no more."

"Let's go, the rest of the herd is angry enough as it is", Pavana said. She seemed like she wanted to say more, but she didn't.

Juvan was the last to leave. He turned back to her and said: "I wish you luck on your quest, warrior."

She didn't know what to say so she just gave him a short, respectful nod. If she was any judge of this encounter she had handled it well. The centaurs had left her with questions that she hadn't asked herself for some time. What had happened to her? Why wasn't she aging or dying? Was she truly standing still in time? Why? And would it start again?

It seemed someone had gone a gotten her gear. She took a single look at her shirt and saw it was ruined, no use in putting that back on. She pulled her sand colored robes over her now torn jeans. She carried the backpack in her arms, it wasn't easy or comfortable, but she couldn't carry it on her back. Eventually she found a little grove, the ground steeped down and at the center, at the lowest point there was a pond. The ground was dry, the pond claiming all water. It would do for the night. She set up camp for the night, despite it being daytime. She made a contraption that was simple and effective, it would keep her both dry and hidden.

The water seemed drinkable, as was almost all water this far north. She drank until she wasn't thirsty anymore and the chopped off some branches from the biggest trees for firewood. She suspected that in this forest a fire would be a friend and not a foe. Quietly she built a fire and soon the flames danced carelessly in the September cold. Poltava had been a different story. She shook her head, no point in pondering over bad decisions once made now. She undressed and crawled into her sleeping bag.

As anticipated it rained that night. She woke up from the cold early in the morning but at least she was dry, She got dressed and then built a sort of closed hearth that would allow the fire to remain burning even when it rained. Then she abandoned her camp and went to explore the forest around it. She wasn't entirely sure where she was but she started exploring north, she put every spot she passed on her mind so she would be able to find her way back. After two hours she reached the edge of the forest, only it was not the cabin she reached this time, but a large willow that stood alone. It was big, abnormally big to be a willow and was twisted in strange ways.

Then she saw a big black dog accompanied by a large, ugly, orange cat. If she hadn't known better she would have claimed that the dog and the cat had an abnormally civilized conversation. When they had almost reached the willow the two parted ways, the cat went back to the castle and the big black dog quickly ran towards the willow. For a second it seemed the willow stirred, but then it went still again and the black dog was gone.

She frowned, not quite sure what had just happened. Wearily she approached the willow, it being so far from the castle she didn't fear being seen and she was curious as to where the dog had disappeared. The closer she came the more she felt that she was missing a vital clue. Then, just as she came in reach of the branches the willow started to move. It was not the wind that caused it branches to stir, it was something else entirely and before she knew it a thick branch hit her on the side of the head.

"Fuck!" she screamed rather undignified and rolled away from the tree that stilled again when she was out of reach. She crawled back into the forest and glared at the tree. It seemed she had gravely underestimated this new world.

* * *

Apparently the womping willow is everywhere, every version of movie, game and book had it placed somewhere else. So I'm saying close to the forest. As per usual this has not been beta:ed, simply because I have a headache, am severely depressed and have lost all faith in the swedish court system. Now I'm going to go buy a larp-sword.

Please review, feel free to take the betaing into your own hands, if you point the flaws out I'll change them. Feel also free to point out the good things, because that's what I like


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